Summary

Data Center is the Place where the Business is Forged!

Igor Dorofeev

Igor Dorofeev was named the Person of the November Issue by DCJournal. He heads the Association of the data center industry and holds CEO position at iCORE (systems integrator). He is also the author and lecturer of several courses on data centers engineering infrastructure, as well as a course on applied electrodynamics and electromagnetic compatibility in the Moscow Power Engineering Institute. We interviewed Igor about his professional experience in the data center industry, his opinion on the prospects of market development, goals and objectives of ADCIP development, family and hobbies.

Data Center Emergencies: How Critical are they for the Business?

Various data center (colo or corporate – it does not matter) malfunctions are always unpleasant. Downtime, dissatisfied customers, loss of reputation – this is just the tip of a huge mountain of potential problems that can be caused even by a minor malfunction of the IT infrastructure. Of course, a number of technical and organizational precautions are taken to prevent emergency situations. But one can't foresee everything. Thus, emergencies happen from time to time. Data on how critical data center malfunctions are for the business can vary considerably: figures vary by country, economy sector, company size, and other factors. Therefore, international statistics do not always correspond to our day-to-day realities. But still, how critical data center malfunctions are for domestic companies? We decided to get the answer by surveying the market participants themselves. We'd like to share the results with our readers.

Reducing Energy Bills by Changing Fans

Expert Column: Andrey Honshteyn

There's a trend of rapid growth in data center power consumption around the world. Currently, cooling costs account for about half of all electricity consumed in the data center. In this connection, it’s particularly important to use energy-saving solutions for cooling systems. Modern EC technology allows succeeding in this field, while saving environmental resources and reducing OPEX.

Stories of Data Center Emergencies

Sergey Belik

Most of the incidents that are usually talked about happen in the «public» data centers. But there are a few data centers of this kind in our country – the vast majority of facilities is owned by the corporate customers or government agencies. It's not customary to discuss emergencies: in case of a data center owner it can lead to losing a positive corporate image, while in case of a contractor it will be a stain on the reputation. The analysis of failure causes would be a constructive way to improve the overall reliability of the local data centers making up this large market segment. The article gives some illustrations of practical experience, mainly - corrections of «someone else's» mistakes. The detailed info on facilities and incidents was modified, possible coincidences are accidental, but all the cause and effect relations are true to fact.

Investigating Data Center Emergencies: What Prevents us From Eliminating Downtimes and Avoiding Incidents?

Claudia Smirnova

Despite all the measures taken by designers, operators and certifying bodies, data centers go offline from time to time. It happens both in small data centers and hyperscale ones belonging to the largest telecos and cloud giants. Meanwhile, each data center operator and owner is highly interested in reducing downtime risk to a minimum (ideally – in its full elimination). But few are interested in disclosing the root causes of failures in their work. This article provides an overview of the most famous data centers failures around the world in 2015.

Corrections of Mistakes

Expert Column: Igor Schwarz

Trinity Co. shares info on a system emergency that occurred in a data center being part of a classified facility with a computing cluster. Affected data center features: power consumption - 1 MW; in-row cooling; power supply and cooling systems redundancy: N+1 or 2N.

Data Center Emergency: Statistics is a Stubborn Thing

What exactly fails? How long does it take to fix it? What actions should be taken to avoid incidents in a data center? In order to answer these questions, we conducted a survey among professionals directly involved in data center operation. The results allow turning subject matter experts' attention to the potentially problematic areas of modern Russian data centers' engineering infrastructure. We also hope that these data will be of help in preventing various incidents regarding data center operation in the future, and to take the necessary preventive measures as we speak.

Stories of UPS failures

Sergey Ermakov, Stanislav Ilienko

To continue and complement the issue's topic (‘Data Center Failures and Emergencies’), the authors shared a few observations with no claim to a serious analysis of causes and effects. Perhaps, some moments will seem funny for the readers, but all the incidents that happened ware in dead earnest. The authors hope that these quite instructive stories will allow the readers to draw conclusions.

Are Humans a Data Center's Friends or Foes?

Alexey Sarygin

The notorious human factor rightly holds the first place among the causes of possible problems that may occur, and occur during construction and operation of data centers and similar facilities. There are innumerable stories of how someone did something or neglected something and then is resulted in big troubles.

Data Center by Huawei in a Year

Expert Column: Mikhail Salikov

Any company entering a market or launching a new range of equipment is faced with skeptical attitude on the part of customers and partners. Such mistrust can be dispelled using examples of projects successfully implemented earlier. The columnist shares info on a number of such projects.

Don't be Hasty to Trust a UPS

Alexander Fominykh

The fault-tolerant data center infrastructure that meets the requirements and specifications of international standards and recommendations, domestic SNiPs and GOSTs, operated by qualified and experienced engineering staff allows minimizing the number of malfunctions and losses because of emergency situations. Opened in 2009, the data center of e-Style Telecom was equipped with all the things needed, and yet one unpleasant incident did occur.

Article about designers

Comparison of power supply systems for critical data center loads based on diesel generator sets, static and rotary UPSs

Vladimir Skorobogatov, Ilya Nikulin

A data center project developers and their client must choose between two embodiment options for the uninterruptible power supply system: the 1st is based on a rotary UPS; the 2nd contemplates a combination of a static UPS and a diesel generator set. The authors carry out a detailed comparison of the two embodiments of the power supply system for critical loads.

Choosing Domestic Products for a Data Center – the Price Factor

The results of data center industry experts survey covering quality, cost and the possibilities of acquiring domestically produced systems for further implementation within the data center infrastructure.

Russian Product: Would there be a Paradigm Shift?

Fedor Klimenko

What features of Russian technical equipment can attract a buyer? What else allows it to stand out against foreign counterparts, except for the price? Russia has always been famous for its engineering potential. Russian engineers significantly outclass the most of their foreign counterparts when developing new out-of-the-box solutions. This is the principle we adhere to when developing all of our modular solutions.

Digital Realty – Global Supremacy

Igor Kirillov

Digital Realty Trust Co. isn't just one of the world's largest networks of commercial data centers – it's also an original and successful business model implemented in the global data center market. The company's experience has shown that real estate investments can be profitable even in the case of high-tech industry. But how exactly did Digital Realty Trust manage to accomplish it?

Operating Data Centers in Russia – Challenges and Prospects

Olexander Hryb

The research methodology was based on a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods. In addition to a questionnaire survey, a number of in-depth interviews were conducted with IT Directors and market experts. This allowed obtaining the most current information that is often unavailable in open circulation – information from people with a great influence on the data center industry in Russia and the Eurasian Economic Union.